News
Ivar Aasen
The oil and gas discovery Draupne,
located centrally in the North Sea,
has been renamed Ivar Aasen.
The name was chosen following
proposals from the operator
and feedback from the advisory
committee on names.
Sunnmøre-native Ivar Aasen was
a leading democratic and national
strategist in Norway during the
1800s. He was a poet and linguist,
but first and foremost the man
who formulated Nynorsk (New
Norwegian, one of two official written
forms of Norwegian), based on how
Norwegians really spoke.
The emergence of Nynorsk
was part of the development of
the Norwegian nation, and of
Norway’s modernisation through
the development of representative
government. The decision by the
Storting (the Norwegian parliament),
in 1885 to place Danish-Norwegian
(Bokmål) and Nynorsk on an
equal footing gave Norway two
official written forms of Norwegian.
This step represented a radical
innovation in 1885.

Edvard Grieg
In the white paper An industry for the
future – Norway’s petroleum activities,
the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy
stated that the procedure for naming
petroleum fields on the Norwegian
continental shelf would be amended.
Among the initiatives was the
appointment ofan advisory committee
on names, which currently comprises
Karsten Alnæs (chair), Kristin Clemet,
Per Egil Hegge and Marit Hauan.
“The names of large, independent
developments have a signal effect
beyond the continental shelf. In
this case, the view was taken that
the Ivar Aasen discovery should
mark and remind us that Norwegian
representative government is based on
linguistic diversity, and that linguistic
diversity has long been a characteristic
of our democracy,” says Minister of
Petroleum and Energy Ola Borten
Moe.
The Ivar Aasen discovery is located
in the central part of the North Sea,
around 200 kilometres west of
Stavanger. It is one of several future
developments at Utsirahøgda, and lies
close to Grieg and Sverdrup.

The Norwegian government has
approved the development plan for the
Edvard Grieg oil field.
The field is the first of several planned
developments in this part of the Utsira
formation. The matter will now be
referred to the Storting (the Norwegian
parliament).
The Edvard Grieg field was discovered
in 2007, and lies in the middle of the
North Sea, 180 kilometres west of
Stavanger. The field is being developed
using a bottom-mounted platform
for processing oil and gas. The
development costs total NOK 24 billion.
“Through this development, a new
company will begin operating an
independent development on the
Norwegian continental shelf. Greater
diversity on the continental shelf is
positive, and in line with Norway’s longterm petroleum policy,” says Minister of
Petroleum and Energy Ola Borten Moe.
Until now, the rights holders have
referred to the find as Luno, but the
Ministry has decided to rename it the
Edvard Grieg field. Grieg’s compositions
contributed to the creation of a body
of recognisably Norwegian music that
became a force in the development of
a Norwegian identity, and thus also a
force for Norway’s independence from
Sweden. Edvard Grieg gave Norway a
national and international musical voice,
and helped to build the nation’s identity.
“This is the start of a new chapter in
Norway’s petroleum story. The expected
recoverable resources in the Edvard
Grieg, Draupne and Johan Sverdrup
fields total 2.8 billion barrels of oil
equivalents. Given the current oil price
and exchange rates, this equates to
around NOK 1,900 billion gross. These
is an enormous sum, which will benefit
all of Norwegian society,” says Minister
of Petroleum and Energy Ola Borten
Moe.
The rights holders in the Edvard Grieg
development are Lundin Norway AS
(50%), Wintershall Norge ASA (30%)
and RWE Dea Norge AS (20%).